From dolostone on Washington Island’s School House Beach, hiking on Rock Island, to strolling along the Sturgeon Bay waterfront, Door County has it all.
M y vantage point is from a treed shoreline along Sister Bay, one of the many scenic coves carved into the 75-mile-long peninsula, which is a county within itself — Door County, one of Wisconsin’s most popular sum- mer retreats. This stretch of land with its cherry farms, forested bluffs and string of scenic coastal towns brings to mind the summer vacation hotspots of my youth — New Hampshire with its warm days and refreshing nights, but without the mountains; Cape Cod with- out the clambakes; and the Jersey Shore minus the boardwalks and perhaps the saltwater taffy. “When you look at the shoreline and the cliffs and the water around you, you soon realize Door County is all about two things — water and stone,” says tour guide Tom Blackwood. “Or maybe three things — retail,” he adds with a chuckle. Yes, the water is all around us and stone too because of the smooth white do- lostone rocks, a mixture of dolomite and limestone, found along many Door
County beaches. The peninsula and its 400-million-year-old dolostone bluffs are part of the 650-mile Niagara Escarpment stretching from Niagara Falls through southern Canada and to Wisconsin. As for retail, well that’s because of the many boutiques, restaurants, and soda shop-like eateries within the quaint towns along Highway 42. Fine art galler- ies, studios, and theater performances, for example, add to the bustle of Fish Creek. Founded by a Moravian settler, Ephraim has one of Wisconsin’s oldest active churches and, dating back to 1906, the iconic Wilson’s Restaurant and Ice Cream Parlor with its red- and white- striped awnings. Park benches offer splendid views over the sailboat-filled marina of Egg Harbor, a town named shortly after — as one tale tells it – dueling boat captains hurled their cargoes of eggs to settle a dispute in 1825. And I would go out of my way to see the goats grazing on the sod roof of Al John- son’s Swedish Restaurant in Sister Bay. The cherry-topped pancakes with Swedish
meatballs are worth the stop as well. Once connected to the peninsula by a sliver of land, a canal dug near the ship- building town of Sturgeon Bay in 1881 made northern Door County an island within itself. Beyond its uppermost tip sits Washington Island, its 35 square miles crisscrossed with country roads and flanked by grassy and rocky shores. And farther north is Rock Island, a state park where you’ll find forested trails but no cars. I spend a full day on an island-hop- ping adventure, taking the vehicle ferry from the Northport Ferry Terminal to arrive within Washington Island’s Detroit Harbor. It’s during the 30-minute ferry ride when I feel the undulations of Door County’s namesake, “Death’s Door,” the six-mile-wide splashy channel where the powerful currents of Green Bay and Lake Michigan merge. Fueled by storms, the treacherous waters wreaked havoc throughout the centuries on Potawatomi and other Na- tive American canoes, followed by some
10 COAST TO COAST SUMMER 2014
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